


How Captain America Became Head of Hydra

by Ruinous



Series: That 2012 Timeline [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 2012 is now my reality, An improbable series of events, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Have I written something light hearted? The world is coming to an end, It's the end of an era, Or at least an era is, Too soon? Too soon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 23:35:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18670672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruinous/pseuds/Ruinous
Summary: **ENDGAME SPOILERS**Captain America leaned over and whispered— “Hail Hydra.”How was this not supposed to affect the timeline? 75% crack 25% friendship.





	How Captain America Became Head of Hydra

**Author's Note:**

> A/n: Endgame was everything. It was one of the most satisfying conclusions to a saga that I’ve ever seen. But Endgame… was so bittersweet. I will continue watching the Marvel movies, and I accept the MCU as the main/canon timeline. In fanfic world though? Now that they’ve given us timetravel as an actual thing, in fanfic world I am just going to live in a reality where everyone’s alive and the OG Avengers are best buds.  
> This fic came out of a discussion I had with my sister. It’s not anything serious, but I wanted to put the idea out there, because it is honestly so fun to play with. Hydra is confusing as heck though. Lots of searching and their motive basically boils down to ‘we’re just evil’. I am going solely with the MCU iteration of Hydra, because the movies don’t really acknowledge Agents of SHIELD as a thing, and the comics are just bloody confusing.

As Steve walked back downstairs, back to the SHIELD agents, he couldn’t help but wonder what Loki’s game plan was.

When he had first awoken, he’d been sure that he’d been duped. He was filled with anger and recrimination. But then he had found the scepter. Perfectly intact and perfectly dangerous. Then he had been filled with confusion.

Loki was a liar. He always had a larger plan at play. After all, he’d somehow had a contingency to the impossibility of the Avengers forming and actually winning the battle.

Steve knew better than to trust the god of mischief. Yet. Yet.

_Bucky_.

He needed to check. Seventy years of back pay, and SHIELD had said they’d do anything for him, hadn’t they? Surely it wouldn’t be such a big deal if he took a small trip to the Alps.

His mind was already miles away. Focused on Europe. On the past. On a whistling train in the dead of winter. On the _impossibility_ yet the _hope_ —

So he wasn’t really paying that much attention when he handed back the briefcase with the scepter inside. He was already planning the search routes when the SHIELD group started rapidly talking to each other. He smiled and nodded at what they said. It was a skill he’d perfected when doing those bloody awful USO tours.

Normally he’d feel guilty for tuning out, but SHIELD looked like they had things well in hand and—oh who was he kidding? Bucky. _Bucky_.

“Now if that’s all,” Steve cut in. He could be here for some support, but really, these were trained spies! Surely they didn’t need to be babysat. “I really need to go. To do, um, to handle some personal business. You know how it is.”

He smiled. It was meant to give assurance, but it may have came out a bit anticipatory, and a bit grim. He saw one of the SHIELD guys pale.

Well, if he couldn’t even keep the face up anymore, that really meant it was time to go. Steve gave a jaunty little wave, turned tail, and jogged off.

 

OoOoOoO

 

“No shit,” Hydra Goon #1 asked incredulously as he was handed a bottle of beer. He gave the bartender a nod, and then turned back to his companion. “Captain America’s on our side?”

Hydra Goon #2 nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah! I couldn’t believe it either. But he took the scepter to bait Loki and then gave us all the credit for protecting it. Not to speak badly of the Director but…” He paused, and then shook his head. “Stark was going crazy about how incompetent we were until he found out we still had the scepter.”

“Woah,” Hydra Goon #1 said, looking dazed. “That’s like, three levels of deception there. I didn’t know Captain America had it in him.”

“Well that’s kinda the point, isn’t it?” Hydra Goon #2 pointed out reasonably. “I mean no one suspected all these years. But if you really think about it, he was a contemporary of The Sacred Founder, wasn’t he?”

The two nodded sagely. Their founder. The Red Skull. A new breed of human.

Then the two passed an uneasy look as the same thought occurred to them. Captain America… had the exact same abilities as their Sacred Founder. Wouldn’t that made them… equal? And if Captain America was the equal to their founder, wouldn’t that make him….?

“Wait,” Hydra Goon #1 said, confusion on his face. “If Captain America was working with us the entire time, why did he fight so hard against our Sacred Founder?”

Their conversation was interrupted by a chuckle. The two turned. A third member of Hydra slid onto the bar bench to join them.

“Isn’t it obvious?” The third Hydra member asked, voice mocking as he cocked a brow. “But then again, what can be expected of two low level grunts?”

“Get over yourself, Roy,” Hydra Goon #2 said, sounding annoyed.

“What’s obvious?” Hydra Goon #1 asked at the same time, curious.

Hydra Goon #2 shot his friend a betrayed look, to which Hydra Goon #1 shrugged apologetically and mouthed ‘we’re the bad guys’.

“Well,” the third Hydra member sniffed contemptuously. His lips stretched into an infuriatingly smug smile. “Think about it for a moment, boys. Where is Hydra now?”

“In a bar,” Hydra Goon #2 said flatly. “Collaborating.”

“Gossiping, really,” Hydra Goon #1 corrected thoughtfully. “And some celebrating, too. I mean the aliens probably don’t differentiate between Hydra members and normal humans. So yay for survival.”

The third Hydra member rolled his eyes. “I’m not talking about this bar, idiots. I mean Hydra as a whole.”

That stumped them.

Their guest sighed, waved the bartender over, and ordered some fruity drink. Then he turned back to them. “Think about it. Back in 1945, we could have conquered Europe, but that’s where it would have ended. But now, we have Hydra members all over the world.”

Hydra Goon #2’s eyes widened considerably, “So you mean…?”

“That’s right,” Hydra Goon #3 stated proudly. “Captain America and our Sacred Founder must have staged that fight so Hydra could grow safely! I mean in the reports the Captain said that our Sacred Founder hadn’t died, right? He’d somehow used the Tesseract to teleport somewhere. I bet he’s still out there right now, watching us!”

The three paused at that. Three shivers went up three spines.

“Well,” Hydra Goon #1 cut in, chuckling nervously. “Probably not _right_ now, right now, right?”

“Y—yeah, definitely not. Al-although, now that I think about it, Captain America said he was working under the Director’s orders back at Stark Tower. B-but if Captain America had been Hydra since The Founding, wouldn’t it be kind of weird to work under Director Pierce’s orders? Not that Director Pierce is incompetent or anything!” Even if he did lose the Tesseract—the divine object of their organization. “B-but just, like, Director Pierce must be like a baby to the Captain, and would you listen to a baby?”

No matter how one cut it, the answer would have to be no.

Three sets of eyes widened as the Hydra goons stared at one another. The horrifying realization hit them all at once.

Holy shit. Captain America was taking orders from Director _Schmidt_.

 

OoOoOoO

 

What. The. _Hell?_

“…thousand feet of databanks. You are standing in my brain.” The computerized Hydra scientist concluded with a beep.

Of all the places that Steve expected his search for Bucky to lead him, it wasn’t here. Not to the abandoned grounds of New Jersey. Not to Camp Lehigh. Not to a bastardized version of Arnim Zola.

“And?” Steve demanded. “What are you doing at a SHIELD compound?”

The computer holding Zola’s brain bleeped. And then— “Is it not obvious, Captain Rogers? You were the one to take me prisoner. Afterwards, I was offered either lifetime imprisonment, or the continuation of my research under SHIELD’s purview. Which would you have chosen?”

Steve’s eyes darkened. At his side, his fingers curled into fists. He didn’t want to believe it… Arnim Zola had experimented on _people_. How could SHIELD—how could Peggy accept him after that?

“No.” Steve said firmly. “You’re lying. And if you’re going to lie, then I guess there’s no need to ask you for what you know.”

“I am not—what? What are you doing?!”

The computer beeped about in alarm as a series of colours began flashing across the various screens. Monitors began sparking from some unseen overload. And then his monitor died.

Zola, or what was left of him, let out some kind of scream. It sounded more like a high pitched whine than anything else.

Everything faded into darkness.

Everything, except the faint blue light of his companion’s arc reactor.

“Well,” Tony Stark said with a frown in his voice. He fiddled with something, and the room lit up again. “That didn’t work out quite the way I hoped.”

The room was devastated. Old wires poked out from nearly every connecting point. Steve turned to face his companion. “Did we get his information?”

“Sort of,” Tony sighed. “Kinda embarrassing to admit, but I didn’t manage to get everything before he self-destructed. He was attempting to send out some kind of message, and I had to intercept that. Zola’s not the greatest programmer, but I also wasn’t expecting to find Metronet over here. Everything’s encrypted though, so it might take a while to decode.”

The clue that Steve had found which led here had been encoded on this thing called a USB. He hadn’t been able to figure it out, which had led him to one Tony Stark. He’d just wanted to know what it was, but apparently whatever was in it was highly protected and tracked to boot. It’d drawn the engineer’s interest, at any rate, which led to Tony following him here.

“Thanks Tony,” Steve sighed, shoulders slumping. “At this rate I’m never going to be able to repay you.”

Tony’s answering smile was like quicksilver. “Well, what’re friends for?”

Steve blinked. “Are we friends?”

The smile faded. “Ouch. Not good enough for Good ‘ld Wholesome America, am I? I see how it is.”

“No that’s not—that’s not what I meant. It’s just, I never thought of our relationship as that way—fuck, I’m messing this up.” Steve closed his eyes and sighed. “Sorry, I’m bad at this. I’ve only ever had one friend. Can we start over?” Then he stuck out the hand. “Hi. I’m Steve Rogers.”

Tony was looking at him as if he were insane. Steve grudgingly deemed this as a reasonable reaction.

“Right, um, so.” Tony shifted uncomfortably. “I wasn’t like, upset or anything, just so we’re clear. And for the record, I think this playground logic of starting over really shows your age. But, well.” The billionaire genius philanthropist grabbed onto Steve’s hand, and gave it three small shakes. “Tony Stark. Please to meet you.”

His handshake was surprisingly firm. It wasn’t what one would expect from such a flaky person. But then again, as Steve was coming to realize, with Tony it wasn’t so much what he said, as what he did.

“Yeah,” Steve smiled back. “Please to meet you, too.”

 

OoOoOoO

 

“Did you hear? Apparently Zola was a _traitor_.”

“Zola? No way! Wasn’t he here from the beginning?”

“Yeah, but think about it. He was awfully quick to tell the enemy everything they wanted to know about Hydra, wasn’t he? Besides, it’s Captain America, who was also there at the founding, who took him out. There can be no mistake.”

“If that really is the case, can we even trust Project Insight…? I mean Zola was in charge of that, wasn’t he? What if he programmed it to kill all of us instead?”

“There’s no doubt that Zola is a traitor. Just before Captain America did him in, Zola managed to send Stark some of our files! Thankfully they were encrypted, but who knows how long that’ll last…?”

“What? No! This is terrible. I had my porn in there! Stark’s gonna to see it and laugh ‘cause he’ll have _done stuff a lot better!_ Do you have any idea how annoying he is when he gets smug? And he can be smug about nearly everything!”

“Why would you have uploaded your porn onto the network anyway? WHY?”

“Oh is that why Captain America’s been so close with Stark lately? I see! He’s trying to get our files back! Our Captain really is the premier spy!”

 

OoOoOoO

 

Jim Popov, Hydra scientist, stood gaping at the superior being in front of him, wondering what he had done to offend the gods. “Y—you want to see the Winter Soldier, sir?”

“Yes.” Captain America’s reply was like silk. Spider silk. The kind that seemed harmless but only sought to trap you and tangle you up and then gobble gobble you were digested. “I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read the report that James Buchanan Barnes was being kept here, with you. Imagine that. Nobody told me when I first awoke from the ice that my best friend was also here.”

Nobody had told— _nobody_ had told Captain America that the Winter Soldier was still operational? Then again, not a lot of people knew about the Winter Soldier, and for those who did, it likely just slipped their minds. After all, the assassin only needed to be woken up when… when somebody needed to be assassinated. It was pretty easy to forget about his existence.

Jim decided to help his fellow Hydra agents out. There were so few Hydra members as it was.

“We—well, it’ll take a bit of time for us to wake him.” Jim quickly explained the procedure as he led the Captain to the cryo-chamber. He booted up the machine. The capsule hissed as the lid lifted, and ice met room temperature. The Winter Soldier was strapped down on the ice bed.

The Captain made a jerking movement towards the chamber. Then he stopped. “Release him.”

Jim’s attention was on the machine sequence. “As soon as I can, sir. But we need to input the right commands first. What orders do you want to give to the Winter Soldier?”

“RELEASE HIM!”

Jim jumped. He whirled towards the Captain, eyes wide. “S—sir, he’s really dangerous.”

The Captain’s voice was dark. “I can handle him.”

“But sir—!”

The Captain turned to him then. His blue eyes were practically glowing. “Do you think I’m incapable of handling Bucky?”

Jim swallowed. He faintly remembered being told about the Captain’s reaction to Loki stealing their Divine Object—the Tesseract. The Captain had laid claim on ‘handling’ the alien himself, marking it as ‘personal’. His friends had told him they’d almost peed themselves from the expression alone. Jim hadn’t believed it then, attributing it to the good natured exaggeration of funny story sharing.

He believed it now.

The Captain seemed to see something in his expression, because then he waved a hand. “Leave us. I’ll do this myself.”

Jim did, running out as fast as his legs were able. Once he was outside, he collapsed against the wall, sliding to the floor when his jelly legs no longer supported him.

The Winter Soldier. Their greatest asset. If it wasn’t for the brainwashing and the chip planted within the metal arm, no Hydra agent would have dared go close to the thing. But the Captain was a superior being, wasn’t he? Just like the Red Skull. Not a failed product, but the real thing.

What a mystifying combination of terror and awe.

Was this was the very first Hydra members had felt? He’d only signed up for this gig for the easy money and Hydra’s willingness to fund his research. But now… now, he might just become a Hydra member, for realz.

 

OoOoOoO

 

Jasper Sitwell briskly made his way down the hall of Steve Roger’s apartment complex. He’d heard from the Hydra scientists that Rogers had taken custody of the Winter Soldier, and while he was sure Rogers did have the authority to order assassinations, he didn’t think Rogers had the authority to keep the assassin to himself.

He had just stopped in front of the door, hand raised to knock, when he heard it.

“No… no! Anything but that!”

They top level Hydra agent frowned. His brows furrowed. He could barely make out the words, but the voice sounded familiar. It took him just a moment to place it.

It was their greatest asset. But Jasper had never heard the thing sound like that. Even when they were putting the Winter Soldier under, the asset had fought. But this, this… there was no will to disobey in this voice.

Just what was Steve Rogers doing?

“N—no. P—please stop.”

Jasper froze. Was the Winter Soldier… crying? Begging?

He… shuffled back a step, feeling uneasy.

“Gaaah!” The Winter Soldier’s tormented voice ripped through the complex.

Jasper turned tail and booked it. The Captain obviously had things well in hand. Whatever could cause _the Winter Soldier_ to sound like that, he didn’t want to see. Having survived in Hydra for as long he did, he knew better than most when to best leave things alone.

In Steve’s apartment, an amnesic Bucky Barnes collapsed on the couch, burying his face behind his hands. “Steve, how do you always get me to do everything with your puppy eyes? They shouldn’t even work anymore! You’re six feet tall!”

“Oh stop being so dramatic,” Steve said with a roll of his eyes. He handed a plate to his companion, which the dark haired man grudgingly accepted. “Now finish your damn broccoli.”

 

OoOoOoO

 

Steve Rogers sat, uncomfortable, and resisting the urge to tug at the collar of his new suit. Before him, the anthem played, and the priest rose to give the closing rites.

The blond wasn’t sure what he had done to deserve the this. Relations between him and SHIELD had become increasingly frosty after he’d found Bucky held in one of their facilities. Granted, it was a facility that no one seemed to know about. Natasha’s face had been scary when he told her. Then she and Clint had disappeared.

In any case, he didn’t know what he had done to deserve being invited to the Director of SHIELD, Alexander Pierce’s funeral.

As the priest neared the end of his speech, one of the SHIELD agents rose and came to Steve’s side. Steve squinted. He knew the face, and if he remembered correctly, the man’s name was Sitwell.

“Sir,” the agent, Sitwell, whispered. “We’d greatly appreciate it if you could give a speech.”

Steve stared.

Sitwell shifted, looking as awkward as Steve felt.

“Me?” Steve asked dumbly, pointing at himself as if to clarify.

Sitwell nodded jerkily. “Y—you’re the Captain, I mean. I know Director Pierce might have been a little below you, but he was an inspiration to all our recruits. If you could… but I mean, you don’t have to—!”

Oh. Steve understood. Sitwell wanted him to give a speech as Captain America. That was why he’d been invited to this funeral.

Steve smiled warmly. He may have his problems with SHIELD, but this was a funeral after all. And on the whole, a group of people who just wanted to protect the American people couldn’t be that bad, could they?

“Yeah, okay, no problem.”

 

OoOoOoO

 

“…Director Alexander Pierce was an inspiration to all. Many of you I’m sure, and many who aren’t here, remember being saved by him. And because of that, he will live on in their memories. His acts of kindness, of self sacrifice, will engrave his character on every person he’s affected….

“…Nowadays, I see a lot about who has the biggest weapons, who has the greatest authority—all that being indicators of power. But that isn’t power, not really. Power is knowing you are strong, and therefore not feeling the need to prove it. Power is being confident in your strength, and not feeling threatened by others reaching that strength. Power is recognizing that other people having strength does not invalidate your own, and thus by working together you can work towards a better future…

“…Director Pierce was powerful precisely because he lived to help people, in the shadows, neither desiring glory nor recognition. But we recognize him. We all know what he’s done for us…

“…No one can live forever by themselves, but in helping others, they will live eternally in the memories of the ones who loved them. To Alexander Pierce!”

Every single Hydra agent, who had been listening in rapt, mesmerized attention, burst into cheers.

They had joined Hydra because they had been disenchanted by the world. They had wanted control, dominance, authority. They had wanted to live forever. While they had been working towards those goals, they had never really seen an example of what it _looked_ like. But now, now, they could see it.

Power was in being confident of themselves. Life eternal was found in helping others and living on in their memory.

And they would follow Steve Rogers to their deaths.

 

OoOoOoO

 

“Holy shit,” Tony’s eyes were wide as he read the (finally!) decoded files from Zola, and the suspiciously similar files within SHIELD itself.

“What is it, sir?” Jarvis inquired politely from above.

“Cap is _a_ _member of Hydra?!_ ”

**Author's Note:**

> And then Tony tries to be a secret spy, only to be stopped by Nat who laughs in his face at the idea that Steve-my-mouth-automatically-frowns-when-I-tell-a-lie-Rogers is evil. Bucky regains his memories. They all look into this, and they’re serious up until they realize that Cap’s somehow accidentally become the leader. Steve wants to destroy the organization, but Tony points out that they’ve been doing good things and convinces Steve to go for rehabilitation instead. So lots of puppies (and by puppies we mean children) around the world are adopted, including Wanda and Pietro Maximoff. The end.  
> Could I have written more of this? Probably. But I’m terrible at crack so I’ll leave someone else to run with this idea. Like seriously this was supposed to be totally light hearted but became a bit of a fix-it? Also, Tony just stuck in there. I swear, Tony. Tony is a lying liar who lies. He was totally upset in the Zola scene. (But I still love you 3000 <3)  
> Have fun~


End file.
